SOVIET UNION: Crackdown on Dissent

EVEN as the U.S.S.R. reaches westward to conclude agreements on commerce
and cooperation with the U.S. and Europe, the Kremlin has seemed increasingly
anxious to prevent détente from penetrating Soviet borders. Since Richard Nixon's
visit to Moscow last May, the screws have been clamped ever tighter on expressions of
dissent in Russia. Now some Western observers think that the Soviets
are poised on the brink of the most massive crackdown since Stalin's
death.

The prime target of official ire is a ragged, typewritten newsletter
called the Chronicle of Current Events. The organ of the loosely knit
Democratic Movement...